In recent years, many small mobile devices have become widespread. Therefore, a capacity of a nonvolatile memory mounted in each of these mobile devices increases, and a reduction in power consumption or in cost is demanded with respect to all electronic devices.
As nonvolatile semiconductor memories, memories each adopting a new system that substitute for an NAND flash memory has been conventionally proposed. There have been proposed a Ferroelectric Random Access Memory (FeRAM) or simply FRAM that utilizes ferroelectricity, a Magnetic Random Access Memory (MRAM) that utilizes a change in magnetic characteristics and a change in resistance accompanied thereby, a Phase-Change Random Access Memory (PCRAM) or simply PRAM that mainly utilizes a change in electrical resistance of a chalcogenide-based material, a Resistance Random Access Memory (ReRAM) that utilizes a resistance change phenomenon of an oxide, and others, and some of them have been put to practical use.